


Things That Go Bump

by Truth



Category: Thir13en Ghosts (2001)
Genre: Death, Gen, Ghosts, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2008, recipient:Jedi Buttercup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-26
Updated: 2010-10-26
Packaged: 2017-10-12 21:40:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/129371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Truth/pseuds/Truth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes the thing that changes your life is also the thing that ends it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things That Go Bump

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jedi Buttercup](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Jedi+Buttercup).



  


## Things That Go Bump

  
Fandom: [Thir13en Ghosts (2001)](http://yuletidetreasure.org/get_fandom_quicksearch.cgi?Fandom=Thir13en%20Ghosts%20\(2001\))

  
Written for: Jedi Buttercup in the Yuletide 2008 Challenge

by [Truth](http://yuletidetreasure.org/cgi-bin/contact.cgi?filename=84/thingsthat)  


Clarity, both of purpose and vision, had been his for the first time. Everything had seemed so obvious and his choices so _easy_. With literal death staring him in the face, the decision to go out as a hero instead of a rat had been almost a relief.

He'd died. He _had_ died.

Dennis Rafkin had ceased to live. He'd been able to see the living from the other side, free of the pain and terror that his abilities had always brought him. It had been beautiful - glorious. He'd lingered just long enough to see to it that his sacrifice had bought Arthur his freedom and....

Somewhere inside, during those long, painful weeks at the hospital, Dennis had been forced to come face to face with the truth. Yes, his sacrifice had been made for Arthur, but it had been revenge that had kept him there, in that fucking house, to make absolutely certain that Cyrus went straight to Hell.

Lingering, feeling powerful instead of powerless for the first time, like the king instead of just another fucking pawn - that had doomed him in turn. Dennis Rafkin hadn't been quite as dead as he'd thought, apparently. Heroic efforts by the EMTs had managed to 'save' him.

The first words that had come from his mouth in the hospital, as he opened weary, drug-widened eyes, had been a slurred declaration that Hell had been the better option. After that, he'd just done a lot of screaming.

Hospitals were not a good place for the psychically gifted, if you wanted to understate the case. Trauma wards were worse. Dennis had seen more ghosts since waking here than he had in almost two years of working for Cyrus. They couldn't leave, he couldn't leave, and thankfully the morphine seemed to be dulling the usual reaction of pain and terror that their touch left with him, although nothing would stop the nightmares.

Somehow, he managed to cope through the long, horrible weeks in the hospital. Arthur had managed to salvage enough from the house's twisted frame to be solvent, and he'd insisted on paying for at least a part of Dennis' hospital bills. Or he'd tried.

"I - no." Even Dennis had look surprised at the words. He couldn't exactly look away from Arthur, who was standing at the foot of his bed. The brace that kept him immobile also kept him staring straight ahead. "No, Arthur."

"You saved my -"

Dennis closed his eyes, in part to keep from seeing that earnest, worried look on the older man's face and in part to keep from inadvertently seeing anything _else_ that might happen to wander past. "I helped cause that mess, Arthur." There was something almost _cleansing_ to the words, even though they'd both already known it. Admitting it here, without the threat of imminent death or having been backed into a corner to force the confession - it gave him a funny, almost empty feeling. He spoke faster, to keep Arthur from interrupting. "Cyrus paid me well, well enough to afford even this. I'll survive, Arthur and if, if I took this from you after everything else, I don't think I'd be able to look at myself in the mirror ever again."

Neither of them mentioned Jean, who'd died in one of the rooms in this same hospital, or what it must have cost Arthur to come here again to comfort the man who'd helped steal her spirit. They didn't have to, and it was _shame_ that gripped Dennis as Arthur moved to his side to place a gentle hand on his head. "If that's how you feel."

"I'll survive." He would, for all that Arthur's hand was resting on his skull as it was one of the few places that didn't cause pain after the brutal battering that had left Dennis folded into a shape he shouldn't have survived.

Hadn't survived, for at least a few short minutes that no one but those who'd been there to see would ever believe.

"Let me know when they let you out of here." And oh, Arthur meant well, but that's why Dennis couldn't look at him, even as he moved back to the foot of the hospital bed. "You don't have to face this alone."

But he _did_ , and that was the part that someone like Arthur, whose whole life was his family, could never hope to understand. The guilt, the nightmares... these were burdens that Dennis would have to carry on his own.

The day that Dennis left the hospital, it was with several prescriptions for pain, referrals to three different physical therapists, and a heavy limp. The money that he had left would just barely cover what would be necessary to get him back into some sort of working order, and maybe it was karma that the single gift Arthur browbeat him into accepting was the silver-tipped stick that Cyrus had always carried.

With the ornate silver head resting heavily against his palm, Dennis headed down the street.

**

There were ghosts everywhere. No one knew this better than Dennis, and he had spent most of his life avoiding any place that might have a concentration of the remaining dead. He'd never been _afraid_ of ghosts, not before his association with Cyrus at any rate. Most of them were entirely harmless, simply unable to let go for one reason or another, or so far lost in denial that they could not accept their death at all.

Dennis avoided and _hated_ the ghosts for what their mere presence did to him, but until Cyrus, he'd never had any reason to fear them. Aside from Arthur's gift of Cyrus' stick, Dennis had only one souvenir of his employment in trapping murderous ghosts. He'd found it with his clothes when he'd been ready to leave the hospital, along with a note.

' _You were asking for this. I hope you can find some good use for it._ '

Dim memories of disjointed raving at times when the morphine had been just enough to disconnect him without actually killing the pain told him that it was probably true. Arthur must have found it in the wreckage of the house, with the stick. To pass it over was a gesture of great trust and Dennis found himself wanting badly to be worthy of that trust.

He found himself a cheap room at an equally cheap motel and sat down with the book. There was more within than that backstabbing Oretzia bitch had shown to Arthur, far more - but the chants and the symbols had never really been Dennis' line.

"No way in Hell am I going to get mixed up with another lunatic and their power games," he said aloud, slowly turning the pages and attempting to turn his limited understanding into something more. There had to be something useful here... something he could use to wipe the memory of recent months away and stop the incessant nightmares.

That night he slept uneasily, book beneath one hand as he dreamed of glass walls and familiar faces flickering and dancing obscenely on the other side.

Dennis spent almost two weeks at the squalid little motel, making the occasional phone call and parting with more and more of his rapidly diminishing savings. Contacts he remembered from various difficulties with Cyrus, names he'd heard mentioned here and there, book-sellers, antique dealers... the list went on.

When he checked out, he had a heavier bag than when he'd started, in an emotional as well as physical sense. Dennis didn't really believe in karma, but being brought face to face with the horror he'd had a hand in brought a great many ugly truths to a place where he could no longer ignore them.

Having to face his own death and deciding to do the right thing... had changed him.

He would always have nightmares, but they were no worse than those suffered by others. He'd been given the proverbial second chance, and it would be criminal to waste it. Now, with a little bit of luck and the small library in his bag, when things bumped in the night - he'd be able to bump back.

   
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